Devil's Due (Destroyermen #12)(160)

“Captain,” Campeti called, “report from Chief Reuben: belowdecks is secure. They didn’t run into much resistance and only have two wounded.” He snorted. “One’s Earl. Fell down a companionway and sprained something, seems like. There’s flooding aft,” he added, “but there’s steam. Isak wants some firemen to help tend the boilers so he can get more pumps online. Anyway,” he said, and took a long breath. “Looks like the ship’s ours.”

Stepping to a Morse lamp, Matt signaled Walker to come alongside. “Very well, Mr. Campeti. Get that arm looked at, but you’re in charge here. Keep squads combing the ship for holdouts and see if the comm gear is working. Get the word out, if you can. We have a lot left to do, and the sooner started . . .” He looked aft at the mainmast, where another big Rising Sun flag flew. “And get somebody to rip that damn thing down. I’ve got to go back aboard Walker and get ashore. I’ll send one of our big battle flags across first, though. Run it up high, where everyone can see it.”





CHAPTER 26


////// Chack’s Brigade

POOM—POOM, POOM—POOM went two sections of little mountain howitzers, spraying 1,200 half-inch balls at a battalion of Grik trying to form in front of them. Machine guns sprayed the tree line as still more of Kurokawa’s army tried to join the defense. ’Cats and Khonashi fanned out to the sides and hit the deck or crouched behind dockyard equipment damaged in the bombings and opened fire. More Grik fell. A comm-’Cat near Chack was shouting in a microphone, hanging from a companion’s heavy pack by a woven fabric wire. He was wired to yet another ’Cat, lugging heavy batteries.

“Make daamn sure they know where we are this time!” Chack shouted bitterly at the comm-’Cat as a pair of “Fleashooters” roared overhead. There’d been a few . . . incidents.

“Ay, ay, Col-nol!” the comm-’Cat replied. “Akka Lead, Akka Lead, this is OR-One, over!”

“OR-One, dis is Akka Lead,” crackled from the headset, through the comm-’Cat’s fur. “Whaat can I do fer you?”

“You can hit the goddaamn enemy this time!” the comm-’Cat snapped, blinking impatience with the pilot’s cocky tone.

“Roger daat,” came the deflated reply. One of the earlier incidents had been very costly. It hadn’t been a pursuit squadron that did it, or even planes off Big Sal. Two Nancys from a pair of AVDs had dropped their incendiaries in the wrong place, killing or severely wounding nearly forty raiders. Realistically, it wasn’t their fault either; the fighting had been close, intense, and almost impossible to understand through the thick jungle from the air. Worse, a company of the 1st North Borno had accidentally marked its position with red smoke instead of green—at the same time Risa marked a target with a red smoke flare and called a strike on it. The planes were already diving and there hadn’t been time to unscrew the mix-up. And it was just a stupid accident, but now Risa was devastated and fighting like she didn’t care whether she lived or died, I’joorka was hideously, almost certainly mortally, burned, and nobody trusted their air support anymore. Chack shook his head.

“Make red smoke on the taar-git. Repeat red,” the pilot said.

Chack rolled over to the comm-’Cat. “Give me thaat,” he ordered, gesturing for the microphone and headset as sand and splinters showered him, sprayed from the debris around by musket balls. “Akka Lead, this is Col-nol Chack-Sab-At, OR-One Commaand,” he transmitted. “We caan’t get smoke on the enemy from here. There’s a clearing a hundred tails across between us. No more trees, no cover. We’re in the ship-yaard now. The enemy is forming behind a large, fallen crane, lying di-aag’naly southwest to northeast, using it for a barricade. Do you see it?”

There was a pause. “Aye, Col-nol. Near de ass end o’ dat sunk baattle-waagon, beside the dock?” Akka Lead asked uncertainly.

“Yes! I need you to strafe thaat position. And I could use some incendi-aaries directly to the east of the point of the crane, south of thaat big undamaged building. Some attention to it would be nice. All enemy forces seem to be coming from those two places.”

“No smoke,” the pilot said, hesitantly. Apparently, the flyers had caught the caution too.

“Follow the crane in from the southwest,” Chack said patiently. “Get bombers to follow you in an’ drop their loads on the building.”

“Aye, Col-nol. Akka Lead out.”

Chack hunkered down to watch. The nightly bombings had been far more effective at disrupting Kurokawa’s shipyard activity than imagined, but the primary result, from his brigade’s perspective, was more junk for the enemy to hide behind. Now would’ve been a good time for their last two tanks—his opinion of them was much improved—but one broke down and the other was still stuck in the trees behind. They might come in very handy in the open terrain around Sofesshk. He glanced left. The PT attack must’ve gone well; two Grik dreadnaughts lay on the bottom beside the pier. One still burned furiously, but the other was only smoldering now. Across the bay, the last enemy “flaat-top” had sunk on its side in shallow water, its port side still spewing flames.

The two Fleashooters bored in, one after the other, bullets spitting from their wings, throwing up fountains of sand and plenty of charred splinters of their own. Grik fell, squirming and screeching as the planes pulled up and away. Moments later, three Nancys with Salissa markings roared down. Incendiaries—still basically big barrel bombs full of gimpra sap and gasoline—tumbled from the first even as tracers rose to meet it. The enemy had apparently been saving one of their machine guns for Chack’s final charge but decided the planes were the most pressing threat. They were right.